Cell Project Space presents Perverts, a group exhibition that combines both emerging and internationally recognised artists and writers. The show is organised around the relation of eroticism and desire to reading, and brings the work of contemporary artists together with historic pieces that include visual art, writing and performance.

Reading is the gesture of the body (for of course one reads with one’s body) which by one and the same movement posits and perverts its order: an interior supplement of perversion. The text is a fetish object, and this fetish desires me. The text chooses me, by a whole disposition… and, lost in the midst of a text there is always the other. The pleasure of the text arises where it, or the other, exceeds demand and attempts to overflow.

In perversion there are no ‘erogenous zones’. It is the site of loss that seduces - the seam or the flash of skin between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater). Or stages an appearance-as-disappearance. Many readings are perverse, implying a split or a cleavage between seemingly contradictory positions - the reader says: “I know these are only words, but all the same...I am moved as if these words were reality”.

The desire of the reader is always also the desire that the author had for the reader when they were writing. I desire the author, I need their figure as they need mine. A striptease of “I” already, as reader, as writer. The “I” maps it’s desire, drives, sexuality and attention to the rhythm of a sentence and it’s semantic network, spoken stops, fricatives and glides.

References:

The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes

On Reading, Roland Barthes

Desire in Language, Julia Kristeva

Libidinal Economy, Jean-François Lyotard

Concurrent with the exhibition is a reading room that includes research texts and supporting material related to reading and eroticism. Reading Pleasure, an evening of performances and readings by Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Zuzanna Bartoszek and Juliana Huxtable will also be hosted on May 18th.

Kathy Acker (1947-1997) was an American experimental novelist, poet, performance artist and writer. Her punk-turned post-modernist writing has continued to be an influential part of the artistic and literary scene.

Zuzanna Bartoszek lives and works in Warsaw. Recent projects include: ‘Ministry of Internal Affairs’ at Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw and ‘Moloch’ at Galeria ON. In 2016 Diastra published Bartoszek’s poetry collection ‘Niebieski Dwór/Blue Court’.

Loretta Fahrenholz lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Two A.M.’ at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Galerie Bucholz in Berlin, and ‘3 Frauen’ at Kunsthalle Zürich. Fahrenholz’s work was shown at Shanghai Biennale 2016 and in group exhibitions at Fridericianum in Kassel and at KW Institute, Berlin.

Juliana Huxtable, based in New York City, works as artist, DJ and model. Huxtable’s work was featured in the 2015 Triennial, ‘Surround Audience’ at the New Museum, New York, 2015, and ‘Performa 15’ commissioned by MoMA, PS1. Recent exhibitions in 2016 include ‘Visible Architectures: Three Evenings of Performative Poetry Readings’, Artists Space, NYC and ‘The Berlin Biennial’, KW Institute, Berlin.

Pierre Klossowski (1905–2001) was born in Paris in 1905 and died in 2001. He was a writer, translator, essayist, actor and painter. His drawings have appeared in museum retrospectives in London, Paris and Cologne, Germany, including major group exhibitions like Documenta.

Bruce Nauman b. 1941, is one of the most influential American artists of his generation with a practice that includes painting, video, installation, drawing, printmaking and performance. He is known for his conceptual works that explore space language and the body.

Keston M. Sutherland is a British poet, and Professor of Poetics at the University of Sussex. His poetry has been published widely and translated into a number of languages.

Stephen G. Rhodes lives and works in Los Angeles and Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Or the Unpreparedness Prometheus and Pals’ at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne and ‘The Law of the Unknown Neighbor: Inferno Romanticized ‘at Migros Museum.

Developed with the generous support of The Arts Council England.

Please note: some works in the exhibtion contain explicit and mature content.